Just incase you want to send me some goods!!

If you feel like sending anything.... :)

Jamsil- LCI Kids Club
2nd Fl. #228-8
Jamsil-Dong, Songpa-Gu
Seoul, Korea (138-863)

Its my school address, I have no idea what my actual one is...

A piece of my life.

Ok. Finally had the patience to upload some pictures of what I have been up to. Enjoy!

I've watched a some soccer.

Buckets of Gimchi at a local street market on the way to the subway from my place.

Veggies.

How about some fish?
Fish is displayed like this all over, most places have minimal ice since it has been hot here, don't quite know how they keep it from not smelling,  I actually think the Gimchi stands smell worse then these.  I'm sure I'll eventually buy something but not so excited about gutting my fish before I actually eat it. :(

A little night scenery on my walk back from the subway. My neighborhood isn't  nearly as crazy busy as some.

You never know what kind of toilet you are going to get. ..a womens urinal or an actual toilet, another mystery is if there is toilet paper. This might be TMI but I'm still curious if you can poop in these....I mean if you've got to go you got to go right?!?

A little taste of home! Not so cheap tho...

A little funny story for you....I got myself a late night snack of a corn dog, the guy asked if I want something on it (I couldn't understand him) and since I'm in Korea why not, right? so I say yes, then he askes if I want ketchup, well, of course, it's a corn dog, right!  I take a big bite and find out the mystery stuff is sugar! haha, Seriously?!! It was pretty disgusting and delicious at the same time....lesson #67, saying yes, is not always a good thing!    

A nice sign I walk past everyday for work (apparently it's suppose to represent peace or something like that.. nice).

Subway when it's not busy.

View off the pier in Woldimo

Taking a ferry ride to what we thought was the right island....but not really. Made it to the tiniest island that had absolutely nothing on it. We walked around and through the island in about an hour. 

Dinner!

We cook it ourselves.

A side dish that comes with the meal, silk worm larvae (I think)  Yes, tried one...will never try one again.

bellies full!! Though, 4 hours, 2 beers, 2 ice cream cones  and a ride later from a carnival close by, I  decided to vomit all the way on a 2 hour subway ride. I managed to puke off the subway, in the subway, and in the corner of the subway station, awesome.

Korea's fast food

A huge park that's not to far away from me

Let me just tell you that this did not look like a thumb from further away...

I love my life. I love my life. I love my life.

My break is sadly over and had to go back to work today. Not only did I have to go work but my day started out awesome! Woke up last night with a horrible headache after taking an Ambien to sleep siince the night prior I decided to stay out til the sun was up and slept til 3pm (oops). I, of course don't have any Ibprofen because I eat it like candy and I'm out from what i brought from the states and I don't know what they use here in Korea yet to buy some AND I'm out of water because I drank it all to nurse my hangover from my late night. AWESOME. I finally fall asleep and get up to take a shower only to find out I don't have any hot water, WTF?!!! Holy hell, that was a cold shower, though, it did wake me up. I don't understand why i don't have hot water so I fiddle with my thermostat (which is all in Korean) thinking I hit something to turn off my water heater (which technically I'm suppose to turn off and on to save energy but screw that!). I go to work, to have an actually not to bad of day (which is a miracle) only to come home to a house that is 90 degrees because I apparently turned on the floor heater... Jes-us! On the bright side, I do have hot water, but now I don't know how to turn off the floor heater and keep the water hot....URGGGGGHHHH. To drown my sorrows, I made myself a cold tuna fish sandwich on white (franz like) bread with processed cheese (think kraft singles)and iceburg lettuce with a side of buggles, thank you Korea.

Meet my thermostat.

Pictures from my vacation to be posted soon....

Chuseok Celebrations

It has almost been a month and I got my first week off for the Korean holiday Chuseok. Though, I'm bummed because i don't have any money to go anywhere since I don't get paid a full paycheck until Oct. 10th but I'll make the best out of it.

Chuseok is Korea's biggest holiday, their Thanksgiving. They get 3 days off and they celebrate it with their family, specifically their grandparents. The children wear traditional Hanboks (see below) and bow in front of their grandparents and then receive a present(s). They make Song-pyun which is rice dough filled with a sesame sugar combo or raisins and then formed into a half moon shape then eaten.

The week before the  holiday the children during school got to wear their Hanboks and participated in making song-pyun and Chuseok games. 

My AM kindergarten class in their Hanboks with their song- pyun  they made. (from top left; Eileen, Kevin, Jay, Jinnie, Alex, Tom, Mark, Peter, and Daisy)

Every "special" activity we do in school, they have to have pictures. For this they had professional photographers come in to take group and individual shots along with the korean teachers taking pictures of there own. Oh, and note that this activity is done in a total of 45 minutes and that include putting on and taking off the Hanboks. Which by the way, they all put their hanboks on in the class room and this is done by them all dropping down in there drawers, all boys and girls! Not something I was expecting...

I'm officially Curl-Ean! :)

Haha, Funny, right?!! :) Thought you all might have missed my jokes!

Been here a little over two weeks now, and I finally got my "green card," moved into my apartment, John took me to get a cell phone (thanks John), AND I got a bank account yesterday! whoo-hoo, I'm moving up in the world people, watch out! I'm not struggling to get around as much either...I've learned how to say the basics (or at least I think I do!), haven't taken any taxis to any place I don't want to go, I've ventured places on the subway, haven't managed to transfer but haven't had to either. Still haven't done anything that doesn't involve drinking, but lets be real here, it's not like I did do that back in the states. :) Though, the bars did close at 2am making it easy to know when to go home....here I seem to make it out just in time for the sun to rise...awesome. FYI, if you want an awesome skype call in the Afternoon your time, 7am my time, keep your skype on! I'm still doing horrible with taking pictures but here's a few to give you a little piece of my life!

My Kitchen

My living quarters

Your bed for when you come visit!!

The Bathroom

They don't use shower curtains just a head shower, and notice no bath tub, it's kinda like an all-in-one bathroom.. Not so bad except once you take a shower the floor and toilet seat are all wet.

My place is nice. It's the largest one out of all the teachers who teach at my school and they say it's the newest (yay, me!). The apartments usually only come furnished with a twin bed, dresser, table, tv, phone and gas range, wash machine and a fridge but the teacher before me left a bunch of stuff so I didn't have to go out and buy it. She left me the basic house hold items plus a futon, chair, lamp, exercise ball and weights, and a bunch of other random crap AND instead of a twin bed I have a full!! It's not the most comfortable thing but I'll take it! SO...there is lots of room for who ever wants to come to Korea!! :)

Here are some other random pictures for the last few weekends...

I have arrived...

My hotel room that I had to stay at unbeknownst to me for a week before I got to move into my apartment.  Super small, lots bigger in the picture then it really was. Id probably say it was a 7x7' room.

Nice view though

Of course I meet up with John. First ride on the scooter, holy hell....I'm not in America anymore!

A little late night street food action, a moroccan sandwich...delicious!

Welcome/ goodbye dinner with my school. We ate Shabu shabu, it's a mulitiple course dinner but basically its like how you do fondu but in a broth and you cook all your veggies, and meat in it, then after it the server puts in noodles, then after the noddles, the server makes like a rice porridge. I liked it! 

Went to a mall to check some electronics with John and a friend, needed to kill some time so did a little shooting at the shooting range next to the food court...no big deal. 

Gangnam

You can drink anywhere....

Met some Korean friends...John and I beat them at shuffle board earlier!

Went out in my neighborhood with some girls from work, found a hof (a sports bar) this one happened to be a baseball one. Koreans love their baseball...who knew...

"You have funny hair" Says the Korean student.

First day DONE. Oh man, what have I gotten myself into. That  might have been the most chaotic day ever...though for some reason I have restrained myself from drinking an alcohol beverage, probably because I know tomorrow is going to be worse.

My schedule is Monday through Friday 9:30am to 6:30pm. I teach a total of 4 different classes, all of which range from the least advanced 2nd year kindergarteners in the school, to the oldest (Korean 12year olds, which I think makes them 10) furthest most advanced in the school. I honestly don't know how I speak the english language after looking at the lessons I, now, have to teach these kids. My AM-k (AM kindergarten class) are learning basic vocabulary, so that entails spelling, definitions, past/present/future tense, using it in a sentence, learning different meanings if it has them i.e. be versus bee or how to say it depending on the sentence i.e. read versus read.  Ughhh, I now have a new found respect for grammer school teachers....it's hard!!! Our cirriculum doesn't give us the lessons to teach it, we have to explain ourselves.  Why do we talk the way we do....can you explain to someone- who doesn't speak your language in the first place, why you change "try" to "tried" when using past tense. Then, in the afternoon, I'm teaching the older kids vocabulary that I don't even use or some words i haven't even heard of (Well, I've heard them but rarely do I ever hear anyone use them)! I'm mean seriously....Portland public schools, you have failed me!!! THEN, on top of that, I have a strict schedule to follow. There is no room to take extra time in any of the days subjects to explain if the kids don't get it or even for myself to figure out how the hell I'm going to teach it!! Anyhow....that's my life right now, pretttty awesome!

Besides school, I get to move into my apartment tomorrow!! wooohooo, finally!! I've been staying at a hotel  the past week, which sucks since I had had to live out of my ridiculously full, not packed very well, suitcases! Which to make matters worse I've had to move rooms within the week to share with another teacher who just arrived my school. Kinda awkward especially since the rooms are...I would say 7'x7'. Small. The apartments aren't much bigger I don't think, but I've heard that mine is the nicest, so that's good!! I'll take pictures to post, I'm kinda failing at taking pictures but I'm working on it!

Ohhh k, time to rest my brain, big day tomorrow!

Miss everyone, wish you all were here!!!!

Oh, Korea..I hope things get easier!

Where to start?? It's definitely harder to get around here then i was thinking. The Korean Language and I don't get along very well, my hair is having a better time adjusting then I am!! :( You guys are lucky that you get this blog, since I came to the website to sign in and everything was in Korean characters.

I got here on Thursday, thinking I'd have the weekend to adjust and start work on Monday, little did I know I had a full packet to read that night and I had to start work on friday. Which was the longest workday EVER of just observing and an overload of information!! Though, instead of just going home to rest when i got here, I, of course, met up with Johnny for a beer which lead to about 10 and going to bed at 3!! HA, welcome to Korea... I think I've managed to have about 10 solid hours of sleep since I have been here and have drank 2 gallons of beer, soju, and/or liquor each day! I'm going to lose 10 pounds from not eating and gain it all in a beer belly!!! haha, awesome.

I've also managed to embarrass myself a ridiculous amount of times in the 3 days that I've been here and it doesn't help when Johnny (my friend who lives here) points me in the known wrong direction! Ass. So far, I've been THAT American, THAT tourist, and just a plain idiot!! Good thing, I'm curly and it's not the first time I've been those...if I couldn't laugh at myself, I'm pretty sure I would hate life! Let's see, I've have paid a taxi driver in pokemon cards and too much money (THanks, John for that one), I have took a cab to the wrong place (Where, I have no idea- though it was an expensive ride), I have sang Kareoke, Tried to eat a restaurant, walked-in and sat down, only to be told they aren't open! Though, he's telling me in Korean so you can only imagine how well that went over. I managed to order a pizza somewhere else after that!  John has been my Tour guide this weekend and beside him trying to kill me on his scooter (which has no driving rules here (i.e. Can drive on the side walk, in between cars, through crosswalks, and through red lights...) has not taken me any where to experience the Korean culture (not that I need to, I'm here for a year...but it's just funny!) I have been to a baseball game, drank margaritas and ate chips and salsa at the mall, and have been to Itewon (sp?) which is where all the foriegners go for nightlife! At my school, they provide lunch which is true Korean food so at least I get something there!!  

All in all, I am really enjoying myself... things can only get easier, right?!?